Shadow of the Tomb Raider PC E3 2018 Preview

While at E3 2018 I was scheduled for a couple Shadow of the Tomb Raider slots though with scheduling issues my time landed on only being in attendance to my NVIDIA one. Here I was able to get another look at the game running on PC, specifically with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti as it's being optimized for best performance on GeForce GTX 10-series GPUs. This should lead to the game being really good on PC which is important as a number of ports in recent years for titles have just been ported over console versions.

While not all are terrible, the results typically leave a lot to be desired. Essentially, it's great that we're seeing this effort being dedicated to Lara Croft's latest adventure. Alongside this hands-on with the regular PC version, I was also able to see the game running at 1080p 60fps on GeForce Now. That is NVIDIA's cloud streaming service which aims to provide players with an instant way to access their library of games regardless of being on PC or Mac.

While I won't dive into it too much, I was very impressed with the results in terms of there being no delay and it running as though it was natively on the platform. From what I was told, the demand in terms of download data was small for great results which is important when it comes to this type of computing.

The E3 2018 hands-on demo for Shadow of the Tomb Raider was a shortened version of what I had played at the Montreal reveal I had attended previously. There wasn't anything new in terms of the game, but it was a good comparison to the Xbox One X version. I will give credit to the console for delivering high end visuals, but being pushed on PC through NVIDIA's setup is where Lara Croft shines even more so with the highest of fluidity. She looks good, as does the environment and it ran well with the keyboard n' mouse setup. I was however a bit disappointed by the black colors in the game as there was distortion problems.

When asking about this problem the local reps there mentioned it was a late pre-show update. I imagine it'll be cleaned up by launch since it's such a small thing, but still distinctly noticeable and distracting. Everything looked great and then whenever there were darker areas it would have weird looking grey parts fade in and out as various shapes. In this demo Lara is moving through crowded streets in search of an artifact, there's a limit on time in this situation as Trinity is closing in as well.

There's some typical movement, combat and of course narrative delivered through gorgeous cinematics. I'm lightly touching on it as honestly my previous preview below dives into the full look since that was an extended hour long demo. I mostly wanted to give thoughts on the NVIDIA presented side of things with the game. It'll look great for those on PC, as long as that one problem is cleaned up.

Read our Shadow of the Tomb Raider Reveal Preview
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